A Little Straight Talk on Who is ‘Anti-Gun’ in Iowa

IOWA – -(Ammoland.com)- “Anti-gun” is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days.

The Iowa House leadership is supposedly anti-gun. The Iowa Senate leadership is supposedly anti-gun. All but maybe 3 or 4 members of the entire Iowa General Assembly are supposedly anti-gun. Heck, most every pro-gun group in the state is supposedly anti-gun!

Whoa! We know that’s not the case. So what’s really going on? What’s the truth?

It’s a matter of style applied to goals. Iowa Firearms Coalition has worked diligently with Second Amendment advocates, including the NRA, to always insist that the ball move forward, down the field, and never backward. However, our playbook contains many different plays. Some are designed to get a first-and-ten, some are designed to get a field goal, and some go for the touchdown. In this manner, never moving backward, we strive to win the game: full restoration of your firearms rights.

We don’t believe we can have just one play–the Hail Mary pass–in our playbook!

Under the current House leadership, Iowans have seen your RKBA Amendment to the Iowa Constitution pass through the House. Your Stand Your Ground bill passed through the House. Your Privacy of Records and NIAA Compliance (rights restoration for some mental issues) passed through the House. And now your Legalize Silencers for Iowans bill has passed through the House with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. Are these the actions of anti-gun politicians and organizations?

It’s true that all those bills but the NIAA died in the Senate, but only at the solitary hand of Senator Rob Hogg, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Senator Hogg has not passed a single gun bill through his committee since being designated chairman and he has stated that he will not pass any gun bills as long as he remains chairman.

However, the legwork has been done to know that with respect to the silencer bill, the members of the Senate Democrat Caucus would vote 20-to-6, along with all Republicans, to pass the bill–but only if it were to get past Senator Hogg and be brought to the floor for vote by the full Senate.

So, what does all this mean, really? IFC and the NRA have spent the last several years creating positive relationships with the members and leadership in both chambers. We know that the any gun bill that gets passed in the House will not move through the Senate Judiciary Committee so long as Senator Hogg chairs that committee. We know that the House is willing to pass good bills, but this knowledge is tempered by the fact that Senator Hogg will kill them. And we know the only way to pass firearms related bills through both chambers is for one of the following things to happen: Majority Leader Gronstal must be convinced to change the leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee; Senator Gronstal must join with the willing House leadership to create a leadership bill for legalizing suppressors, or barring all that, the citizens of Iowa will need to make changes to the make-up of the Senate.

One thing is certain: Your Iowa Firearms Coalition and National Rifle Association are there in Des Moines, at the Capitol, working tirelessly with members of both chambers to restore your firearms rights. Furthermore, and most importantly, IFC and the NRA have the most motivated, involved, and active membership in Iowa. When we need you to respond, you respond. You have been very influential with your calls and emails, and it gives us great confidence to know that we can count on you because you have never let us down.

Our most sincere thanks go to our memberships for making IFC and the NRA the two most influential groups restoring firearms rights to the citizens of Iowa!

About Iowa Firearms Coalition:
The mission of the Iowa Firearms Coalition is to be THE firearms rights organization in Iowa, representing Second Amendment concerns for all firearms owners in the state. We will staunchly defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen as well as the rights of all Iowans to defend themselves and their loved ones. We seek to partner with other like-minded organizations to increase our effectiveness in accomplishing these goals. Visit: www.iowafc.org

3 thoughts on “A Little Straight Talk on Who is ‘Anti-Gun’ in Iowa”

A soft group trying to tell you that just one senator threw a monkey wrench in the cog. Nice try, but every state legislature has an entire band of bad actors in leadership. Republican ‘majorities’ have only had an appearance of being pro-gun. The actions are more telling. When you see a so-called pro-gun group giving cover to the politicians — like in this alert. RUN! They are just inside lobbyists content with breadcrumbs.